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Monday, September 15, 2008

Surreal

This week, I have to finish dealing with the surreal experience of scheduling where I'm going to be in the 2009-2010 school year. On Monday, we submit our choices for our clinical rotations, including when we want to take vacations and where we want to go for externships. I just had a potential externship mentor tell me that they just don't know where they'll be in April of 2010. It seemed unreasonable at first, until I remembered that most people don't know where they'll be in April of 2010 just yet. Hrm.

I want to share my list of rotations that I've decided on, but first off, some definitions. Fourth year is unlike any other year in vet school. It starts in May of 2009, and ends in May of 2010. It consists of 28 blocks of two week long clinical rotations, in which they unleash us into the teaching hospital and various clinics around the country (and internationally) to learn how to practice medicine alongside professors and mentors. We get five weeks of break (two two-week blocks and one one-week block), plus one day off to take our board exams in November or December. Then, we graduate in May of 2010 and head off into the world, DVM degrees in hand (yikes!).

I'll be tracking small animal medicine, meaning that my rotations will focus on cats, dogs, and few small exotics. My required rotations are a smattering of 14 general rotations (internal medicine, surgery, derm, necropsy, anesthesiology, etc). For the rest of the 28 weeks, I get to pick nine elective rotations and three externships... Here's what I've decided on for now (although I'm sure it will change a few times a day until Monday):

emergency medicine

small animal dentistry

behavior

ophthalmology

companion bird

cardiology

oncology

laboratory medicine (aka clinical pathology)

nutrition OR acupuncture (still deciding)

shelter medicine at the Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley

exotic pets at an exotics-only practice in Indiana

small animal ultrasound with a mobile practitioner in the Twin Cities

I know I'll be taking two weeks off for the wedding in August, and two weeks off about a month before the wedding. I already know I'll be working over Christmas break, but at least I get Christmas Eve and Day off (yay!).

It's getting hard to remember that we have a whole school year to finish before we get to start clinicals!